


A Change of Plans

by elderfleurs



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Crying on the MTA, I'm Bad At Tagging, Inanimate Objects as Friends, Just Little New York City Things, Katsudon and then You Die, Living the American Dream?, M/M, Nishigori and Yuuri Splitting an Efficiency, Peeing at Starbucks, Phichit Chulanont: Fashion Design Student, Phichit's Perfectly Highlighted Cheekbones, The Joys of the Food Service Industry, Using Your $80k Degree for Minimum Wage, Varying Levels of Anxiety, Viktor Nikiforov: Event Planner, With Bunkbeds, Yuri Plisetsky: Definitely Not In the Russian Mob, Yuuri Katsuki: Caterer, nyc au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-09-28 03:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elderfleurs/pseuds/elderfleurs
Summary: Yuuri couldn't stand to spend his entire life stuck in Hasetsu. Instead he's decided to spend his life stuck in a food cart on a busy Manhattan intersection where he has all the time in the world to contemplate his life choices and his lack of a relationship. That all gets thrown out the window one afternoon when he's "discovered" by a young Russian catering professional who works for the foremost event planner for oligarchs in the tri-state area: Viktor Nikiforov.





	1. Chapter 1

_ 200g of rice in the bowl. Pork: out of the deep fry. Whisked egg on the griddle. Slice the cutlet, onto the rice. Egg off the griddle, onto the pork. Ladle of stewed onions and broth on top, handful of peas. Pop on the lid, bag it with napkins and chopsticks.  _

_ Repeat until you die. _

The constant mantra was the only thing that got Yuuri Katsuki through his weekdays in the sweltering hell where he made his livelihood. Trapped in thirty square feet of steaming steel for eight hours, the shimmering oil of the deep fryer and the greased griddle adding their heat to the humidity of August in New York, he sometimes wondered if he should have just swallowed his pride and ran home to Hasetsu after graduating college. Smelling like the delicately fragranced mineral waters of his parent’s onsen resort may have been preferable to the heavy cologne of fried pork and browned onions that now eternally clung to his person. Yuuri tried to think positively about these situations; the smell that permeated his clothes usually meant a few centimeters more coveted personal space for him on the train back home at night.

“Can I get two bowls, one no peas one no onions, please?”

“My pleasure!”

“Got any corn??”

“Sorry, no corn!”

_ Who the hell puts corn on Katsudon? _

He hoped that his sweat-shiny face had performed an accommodating smile as the customer started fishing bills out of his pocket. Special requests always messed with his flow which was a death sentence in the middle of the lunch rush, but his razor thin profit margins kept him from posting NO SUBSTITUTIONS on his already sparse menu. Those slim margins kept him from doing plenty of things he wished he could do, not to mention the municipal red tape that tied up his business into making a product that only just barely resembled his mother’s beloved specialty dish. But he had to think positively about these situations; his katsudon lunch bowls were selling rather well, after all. 

Even though he had to alter the recipe so that the eggs were cooked a little harder because the majority of his early customers had thought the gorgeously silky yolks were “raw and gross”. Even though he had to serve more than a standard  _ go _ of rice per bowl to placate the frugal yet insatiable American stomach. Even though time constraints and archaic NYC Department of Health regulations forced him to take a perfect dish that deserved every single moment of luxurious simmering that one could allow, and turn it into a slapdash cart meal that was served up in a matter of seconds. 

Yuuri had to think positively about these situations. Because honestly, he couldn’t afford to develop a Xanax addiction.

“No peas, no onions up! Arigatou gouzaimasu!”

“Can I get some forks with that?”

“Of course, enjoy!”

200 grams of rice in the bowl. Pre-pounded, pre-battered pork cutlet dropped in the fryer. Collect cash, make change. Crap, he had to pee, but that was a joke—it was barely 12:30, and he manned the cart alone until 6. Running across the street to the Starbucks bathrooms meant risking his entire operation, possibly even his residency status. Plainclothes cops and health inspectors always managed to pop out of the dense crowds of NYU students, salary workers, and vaping punks at the most inopportune times and an abandoned food cart was an impounded food cart and a forfeiture of his vendor’s license.

The retired vendor that had sold him the cart had told him he was insane: doing the shift alone, day after day, was the fastest way to an early grave. Yuuri had handed him eight grand for the “gently used” halal cart and he’d paid $20,000 to lease a food vending permit for two years from another old man (and frightfully good entrepreneur) who’d gotten one of the limited licenses back in the eighties for about $200. 

“That’s extortion, Katsuki,” Takeshi had said to him over a beer in their tiny studio flat. “For $20,000 you could have leased an actual kitchen.”

“Yeah, for maybe a month. Twenty was fair, I saw some guy put down twenty seven on one of the message boards I’ve been lurking on.”

Nishigori frowned, his thick eyebrows coming together as he contemplated his friend’s situation deeply. Shifting on the uncomfortable IKEA stool they’d grabbed from the curb, he took a long pull from his bottle and swallowed thickly before sharing his genius. “You should have just tried to sell without one.”

Yuuri shook his head, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose with the action. “That sounds like a really excellent way to get deported or something.”

“I guess I just don’t understand the point of graduating from Stern and then sticking around to dump all of your savings into a low-profit food cart.”

“Because it’s what I want to do, I guess.”

When it came down to it, what he couldn’t vocalize to his roommate was that he was horribly selfish and having control over his life direction was important to him. He had fully pitched the idea of going to NYU to his parents as a way of really honing his skills when it came time for him to take over the family business, but no one bought that for a second. You didn’t need to do a business degree as an exchange student in America to take over a small cash-run traditional onsen that you’d literally grown up working in. He just really didn’t want to spend his entire life on the path that everyone assumed he’d take from the moment he was born. 

His parents were surprisingly unalarmed by his plans and had sent him across the world with hugs and a promise to help him if he ever found himself in any kind of pinch. His mom’s smiling eyes had seemed the most understanding. Her boy needed to get out of his hometown, see new faces, new places, grow, find himself. 

Right now he found that he might seriously pee himself if he didn’t get to a bathroom.

The rush had died down as everyone hustled back to their afternoon commitments and now Yuuri had absolutely nothing to distract him from the pressure in his bladder. The mid-afternoon hours were the worst when it got slow and his mind had time to turn to anxious thoughts without orders or prep to concentrate on. Most often he would dwell on money, particularly the absence of it, and inevitably that would lead to the idea of failure, of going back home to Japan with absolutely nothing and having to face everyone back home with nothing whatsoever to show for all his time spent in New York. 

But today was Thursday, which meant he was worrying about his mother and their weekly Skype chat to make sure that he was still alive and hadn’t ended up in a bathtub in Hell’s Kitchen with his kidneys missing. 

“This city doesn’t have a lot of crime, mom,” he’d remind her. The entirety of Hiroko’s knowledge of New York City was fully based on a popular shoujo manga from the 80’s and in spite of her encouragement for Yuuri to broaden his horizons, she’d been vocal about her concern for her son’s safety when he’d announced he was moving to Manhattan for an extended period of study. 

“Really? It’s America, right? Everyday I get worried you’ll be involved in a shooting!”

“That’s not really a problem here,” he lied, cleanly ignoring that headline he’d caught in the Post about a gang shooting at a funeral home on Flatbush Avenue. “Most of the crime you have to watch for is just, like, scammers and shady stuff like that.” He had never mentioned to her how much of his savings he’d put down for his vending license. 

“Have you made any friends yet, Yuu-kun?” She’d moved on to his least favorite topic and he tried to put a smile on from where he was snuggled under his bedsheets in the lower bunk of the bed he shared with Takeshi. 

“Sure, Nishigori-senpai.”

“Konban wa, ‘kaa-san,” Takeshi called down sleepily from the top bunk in the dark, his face half buried in his pillow. The old spring supports combined with his considerable weight caused the mattress to dip precariously low into Yuuri’s bunk space. 

“Konban wa, Takeshi-kun,” she called back with a little laugh. Yuuri gazed quietly into the glow of his phone at her crinkle-eyed smile and, for a moment, regretted leaving home deeply. Her face softened as she considered her son from across the world, asking gently: “Any new friends?”

“Not yet, mom. I’m just so busy, you know?”

He wasn’t going to tell her about Cube-kun. Cube-kun was basically the closest thing to a friend that he had in the city besides Nishigori. She was crap at conversation, but she kept him company all day from her place across the way from his vending window; a giant black monolithic cube that served as the local meetup spot for Astor Place. Just as loyal as Hachiko, she waited there every day to greet him when he showed up bleary-eyed in the early morning hours, and was glad to pass the time with him in the evening until the van arrived to haul his cart to a commissary on 5th Avenue for cleaning and overnight storage. 

Cube-kun listened silently to his worries and steadfastly watched over his business and customers, eternally balanced  _ en pointe _ like his old ballet teacher seemed to be. Unfortunately, unlike Minako-sensei, she was not humanoid and couldn't watch the cart for him while he took a pee break.

Between his screaming bladder and the deeply troubling realization that he was beginning to consider an inanimate object one of his closest friends in the city, he had completely failed to greet a customer. 

“Hi!” 

The cheerful chirp of a greeting pulled him back to his job and he looked out the small window with wide, embarrassed eyes. 

“Hello! Sorry! Sorry, what can I get you?”

“Hmmmm…” The young man was tiny, even by Asian standards, had a radiant and flawless dark complexion, was fashionable in a thrift shop sort of way, and was altogether strikingly beautiful.  _ Likely a university student, _ Yuuri’s customer-profiling brain algorithm told him. He vaguely thought about the last time he went on a date and tried not to burst into tears. 

The customer’s mouth turned up into a sweet smile, and it managed to out-dazzle the subtle golden streaks of highlighter that graced his cheekbones. It was a pure, piercing beam of wholesome realness in a city where most smiles from strangers were a tight-lipped signal that the owner was about to cheerfully commit homicide. “Can you do liiiiike...cha han?”

The request paired with his smile threw Yuuri off— its power managed to squash all his usual frustration with such a blatant disregard for his posted menu. “Oh, uh...sorry, it’s really just what’s on the menu.” 

He reached out and tapped the small board next to the window. It read as follows:

**KATSUDON - $9**

_ Pork cutlet with egg and onions over steamed white rice.  _

**Assorted Drinks In Cooler - $1**

“So...just Katsudon.” The smile got a little bigger, but his dark eyes flicked back and forth between the menu and the vendor. “Okay! I guess I’ll try it! Must be your specialty, huh? Do you take Apple Pay?”

“Uh...cash. S-sorry.”

“Oh, dang. Uh,” he looked around for an ATM sign. Yuuri knew off-hand the location of every ATM within a three block radius, but the pee situation was getting dire. Desperate times overcame the strict social boundaries that controlled his anxieties.

“Listen. Do you want a free lunch?”

“Ummmm, I dunno! Haha, is this gonna get sketchy?” 

“N-no! I just...I’ve had to go to the bathroom for three hours and I can’t just leave the cart alone. If you could just stand up in here for two minutes, I’ll give you an order for free!” 

Yuuri figured he must have looked absolutely desperate because after hardly a moment of contemplation, a finger tapping his sharp chin, the guy nodded. “Sure thing fam, I got you.”

Without another word, Yuuri bolted out the side door and across the street, dodging an oncoming Lyft and rushing the door to the Starbucks. Punching the door code he’d memorized and thanking the universe that there was no line, he locked the door behind him and unzipped his fly. 

Sweet relief. 

A minute later when he got back to his truck, Fashion Boy was inside taking selfies. 

“Everything good?” Yuuri asked, standing in the door, slightly winded from the sprint back across the street.

“Huh?” Fashion Boy looked away from the front-facing camera of his phone (...was that a Hamtaro case??) and grinned. “Oh. Yeah! For a second I got kind of worried! Like, maybe you wouldn’t come back! And I’d have to figure out how to make the food, but despite my plucky earnestness and can-do attitude, I would probably really suck and I’d get yelled at. But no one came by and now I’ve got some really crazy stuff on my Insta story. So...all good!”

“Listen, thanks again,” Yuuri moved aside as the perky fellow climbed down out of the cart to make room for its owner. “I really appreciate it, that could have gotten bad. Um...what’s your name?

“Oh, it’s Phichit! No worries, I’m happy to help. I still get a meal out of it, right?”

“Yeah, absolutely!” Yuuri climbed back up into his metal prison and started getting to work on it. 

“Try to make it sexy looking, huh? I want to put it on the grams.”

“Oh, uhhhh...sure thing. Um, are you cool with soft eggs?”

“The runnier the better!”

It took deep control for Yuuri not to whisper “bless you”, and with a determined face he set out to make the sexiest bowl of katsudon possible with the means he had available to him. Surprisingly, without a line of hungry customers, things turned out better than he expected. When he constructed the takeout bowl with the perfectly fried, crispy pork artfully arranged and covered with runny egg and lightly caramelized onions, even he was impressed with himself. 

It was almost Mama Katsuki quality.

“Here, please enjoy!” He handed off his baby through the window delicately without putting a lid on it to avoid steam. It was received with a big smile from Phichit, at the ready with his phone camera open. 

“This looks  _ amazing _ ,” Phichit said, eyes wide and honest in a way that made Yuuri’s heart hurt the same way his Thursday night Skype sessions with his mom did. Putting it down on the running board just below the window, Phichit snapped a few artistically staged shots before covering the takeout bowl with the lid he was handed. He smiled up at Yuuri. “Thanks again for the free lunch!”

“Thanks again for helping me out,” Yuuri replied, offering his own honest smile back. He passed over a bag and some chopsticks and extra napkins and Phichit gathered up his things, waving as he left. 

Yuuri waved back and felt a pang of loneliness at his departure. Their brief exchange had really felt like a glimmer of friendship in the cold, performative service of his daily grind. 

The smiling face popped back into the window, startling him. “I totally forgot to ask your name!”

“O-oh! It’s, uh, Yuuri. Yuuri Katsuki.”

“Yuuri KATSUki owns a KATSUdon cart? Are you for real?” Phichi laughed good naturedly, and Yuuri’s anxious heart was put at ease. 

“No joke. That is my name,” he replied with a shy smile, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

“Welp, I’m definitely making this my new lunch spot when I’m in the area. I’ll see you again, okay?” 

“Definitely!” 

When Yuuri went home that night, he thought fondly about his new, smiling friend. 

Over the next couple of weeks, Phichit’s sunny face graced his window a few times and Yuuri noticed an uptick in customers that he profiled as students. When he brought it up, Phichit had cheerfully told him that he had promo’d his cart on his social media accounts—apparently, the Thai-born fashionista had gathered a modest local following of NYC art students and hipsters ever since he’d started his degree at Parsons.

Yuuri wasn’t going to complain; he was fully aware of the impact of social media on sales, and he was also fully aware that he was horrible at social media. Giving Phichit a few free Ramune with his lunches in exchange for some expertly hashtagged free advertisements wasn’t a deal that he was going to sniff at. He also found that students were typically less annoying than the older business crowd: they were less fussy and more adventurous eaters, and most of them were fairly in touch with Japanese culture because they all grew up watching the same anime he had back home. Exchanging  _ Shokugeki no Soma _ references with students made his day less stressful than dealing with vaguely racist comments from older white guys that wandered over from the bank. 

Towards the end of the dinner rush, two of the aforementioned suits walked off with their bags in hand grumbling about the price hikes of roach coach meals. Trying to squash down the tension headache he was developing, Yuuri almost didn’t notice a head of blonde hair standing in front of his window. 

“HEY.”

Yuuri blinked and leaned forward to look, his glasses slipping down his nose, damp with sweat. At the same time, intense green eyes bounced up as the customer rocked up on his toes to see through the window. “Hello, can I get an order or what? You closed??”

The Russian accent took a moment to parse, but Yuuri shook his head. “No, still open! What can I get you?”

“You only have one thing on menu,” the kid griped. He was a kid right? Yuuri had trouble guessing ages, some of these students came around with faces like tweens drinking cans of PBR “subtly” hidden in brown paper bags. 

“So...one then?”

“Yeah, and Coke.” The shorty smacked a twenty down in the window and Yuuri dropped a cutlet into the fryer before making change for him. He washed his hands and delivered up the order in a few minutes, wishing the boy a pleasant evening and watching him walk off. A bit of a line had built up, so he didn’t have time to dwell on it. It wasn’t until he noticed that the boy was back and hovering just a few yards away from the cart that the warning bells started going off. 

At first he thought there’d been a mistake with the order. He’d gotten more than a few customers that came back asking for a refund because they simply didn’t like the dish. That was...whatever. He couldn’t really fault people their taste buds (but also, come on, you know if you like pork, egg, onions, and rice). But the blonde never came back around to ask for his money back. He just stood over near Cube-kun, scowling in Yuuri’s direction. It was thoroughly spiking the paranoia gauge on his weird-shit-o-meter. 

This was gonna be bad. He’d been tricked by baby-faced plainclothes cops before. He still owed Takeshi about a grand from the last time he’d been snagged on a parking technicality that came out of nowhere and sent him into a death spiral panic attack in the middle of lunch rush.  _ At least it’s almost the end of the day, _ he thought to himself.  _ I can meltdown properly on the train home.  _ He’d try to grab an end seat near the door between cars so that he could properly curl up into a ball and cry against the little window while other commuters pretended not to notice.

He ran out of pork around 6, which was happening more frequently, and he ticked a mental note to revise his purchasing orders. Shutting his window he began to tidy while waiting for his cart to be picked up by the garage. After a moment, there was a sharp knock on the glass. 

“Sorry, I’m sold out!”

“Let’s have little chat, huh?” 

Yuuri peeked out the window to see the blonde kid staring straight at him with a scowl he hadn’t seen the likeness of since he asked a Midtown barista what a cortado was. “Uh-Uhm...come around to the side door.”

Stepping down onto the sidewalk, it felt about fifteen degrees cooler in the summer evening heat outside the confines of the steel sauna he spent most of his day in, but Yuuri was sweating for entirely different reasons. The Russian punk stood in his way, arms crossed, and Yuuri wiped a slick of sweat from his forehead that made his sleeve damp.

“Pretty sure...I’m parked exactly six inches away from the curb…” Yuuri started, still not quite certain he wasn’t dealing with NYPD. Was this chibi about to pull out a ruler?

“I’m not a fuckin’ cop,” the blonde clicked his tongue and shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie. His eyes narrowed and he looked around furtively. “How much money you make today?” 

Yuuri paled, his toes curling in his sneakers as he leaned back defensively. He’d made a good amount, the bills currently tucked in the pocket of his apron in a nice fat stack that he now realized was an easy target. The kid was short, but his arms looked like they had some muscle under his red hoodie, and Yuuri steeled his heart to deal with his first ever mugging. He stood up a little straighter, sticking out his chin and trying to find some courage even though his knees were feeling wobbly. “Enough. Why?”

“Jeez, don’t get tough. You had lines for a while. Food was pretty good. You know how to do other Japanese stuff or just that one dish?”

“Uhhhh, no, I can make….other...stuff,” Yuuri’s anxiety was melting into confusion at the odd line of questioning from the odd young man. He pushed up his glasses nervously. “I just like making katsudon.”

“Huh.” The blonde sized him up for a moment. “I hear your name is Yuri too. Same for me, but like...Russian, not Japanese.” He puffed up his chest and paused for another moment, kicking his booted toe against the sidewalk while Yuuri digested this information. When the elder of the pair didn’t seem to have a suitable response, the younger continued. “You wan’ get drinks with me? I have a business proposition.”

Yuuri’s eyebrows raised, his mother’s outlandish warnings ringing in his ears. “...are you with the Russian mob?”

The boy chuckled, looking too chuffed as he crossed his arms and smirked, jutting out his jaw aggressively. “Maybe.”

Yuuri was 99% sure this kid had nothing to do with the Russian mob.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri and Yuri talk business in strange surroundings. Phichit gives Yuuri a pep talk and Yuuri starts to catch feelings. There is a good amount of anxiety. 
> 
> Thanks as always to @fifthcolor for editing (and your funny voice acting on the read through)

Yuuri stood behind Yuri just inside of an automatic door. He was keenly aware that his backside was causing the door to repeatedly slide open because there wasn’t enough space for him to move in any further. They weren’t in a market, or any place where you’d expect such a door, rather a packed bar on St. Mark’s Place, a block or so from where he’d spent the day slinging bowls of pork cutlet. While a hostess with perfectly arched brows and a red-painted scowl squinted dubiously at the Russian’s ID, Yuuri scanned the bizarrely-themed izakaya, growing more and more embarrassed every time his ass triggered the sensor and a little chime announced its presence. He pushed forward a bit and was rewarded with an over-the-shoulder glare from Yuri when he bumped into him.

_Stuck between a door and a hard face_, his mind randomly supplied. A third of himself chuckled inwardly, another third glowed with pride at a passably clever manipulation of an English proverb, and the last third had a minor conniption as his ass tripped the door sensor yet again. 

He had already been on edge just by being in the area. Yuuri specifically avoided this raucous block of curiosities, its sidewalks packed with enough people to take his anxiety from its usual low hum to full shrieking in his skull. So that evening when the behoodied blonde had suddenly plunged with confidence into the masses, Yuuri had only had a blink of time to decide whether this mysterious “business proposition” was worth the strain on his nerves. He steeled himself and walked in close step behind the potential paycheck, dodging a drunk Hello Kitty themed bachelorette party and shying away from a guy on the curb aggressively hawking bootleg DVDs. When they finally slowed down in front of their destination, Yuuri’s stomach had tightened in trepidation. 

“You been to this place?” Yuri had jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the izakaya. A passing tourist laughed like a squawking bird and the acrid scent of weed wafted around them. A giant tanuki statue outside the door of the establishment glared at him with demonic red eyes and a conspicuous erection.

Dazed by the surreality, Yuuri had to push the words out. “Uh, no.”

“Oh, it’s _crazy_ in there,” Yuri had laughed as he hopped down the steps to the small courtyard where people had been lounging around, waiting for their names to be called. A girl pushed her face into a hole in a painted board that gave her the body of a yakuza and grinned wide as a friend snapped her picture. Behind her, a group of guys were crowded around a dilapidated cotton candy machine that whirred loudly as it pumped out clouds of violet spun sugar. 

At that point, Yuuri had wondered if he could casually bolt to the subway, but a menagerie of crust punks lounging on the stairs to his left had eyed him up to panhandle. He noped his way down the steps and pulled up behind his only lifeline in this madhouse. Said lifeline was arguing with a young Japanese hostess in a red happi holding a clipboard. He hadn’t been able focus on their conversation, too distracted this time by a massive pile of baby heads staring down at him from the thrift shop window on the second floor. A screen above the decapitated doll skulls flashed FUCK PUTIN!!! before going into a Ramones video. Sure, why not?

Now, finally in the air-conditioned and dimly lit space and able to move away from the demonic ass-detecting door, Yuuri held out his identification with only a slight tremble while his acquaintance bitched about having to produce a second ID—“The fuck is point of city ID if not proof I can drink??”. As his age was verified, the Japanese man raised his eyes and took in the painfully kitsch distillation of various bizarre aspects of his country’s culture. The beer hall decor was a violent clash of Shinto festival paraphernalia, 70’s exploitation cinema posters, and Shunga-style pictures of geisha in dirty positions with mollusks. Enka music warbled over crackling speakers, competing with the roaring din of diners sat in low thatched chairs around tables. 

“_Nimei-sama desu!_” The hostess’s shrill call announcing their arrival to the staff snatched Yuuri’s attention back, and he quickly followed her as she grabbed two menus and led the way to their table. 

The open kitchen to his left responded with a rousing “_Irrashaimase!_”. He hardly had time to take that in as they were seated directly across from a glassed off interior courtyard that held nothing but two naked, anatomically detailed mannequins with long-nosed tengu masks over their faces. 

“Look!” Yuri laughed as he sat down on one of the small chairs, leaning back and pointing at the female casually. “That thing has massive tits, huh?”

“Toilet,” was all Yuuri could manage to get out before he bolted to the back of the establishment, rushing past a wall of defunct pachinko machines and locking himself in a bathroom covered in sharpie graffiti and chopstick wrapper wallpaper. Taking a few moments to breathe, he methodically washed his face and hands at the sink with cold water, trying to calm down from being dragged to this weird brothel-themed dinner for what was supposed to be a professional meeting. 

He wasn’t a prude or anything—he definitely had a healthy sex drive and plenty of racy little fantasies to bother him at night in the very awkward bunk bed situation he shared with Nishigori. But something about overt and unprompted sexuality had always made him distinctly uncomfortable. It made his chest feel tight, like being on stage in a play in front of a faceless crowd and you couldn’t remember your lines or what you were supposed to do next. He blamed that feeling on why he was a twenty-four-year-old virgin; the few sexual situations he’d been on the precipice of had always soured when the person he was with purred a suggestion into his ear or touched him too erotically too quickly and it broke his brain, sending him spiraling out of the warm haze of intimacy and right back into the frigid waters of his anxiety. 

He quietly debated taking the emergency Xanax in his wallet as he dried his hands, but it was his last one, and his dealer hadn’t returned his texts in weeks. Fuck it. He ran a hand through his hair to push it back off his face and left the little miracle in his back pocket. Fuck it all.

Exiting the bathroom, he stopped short as the song that had been piped into the room ended and an air raid siren started bawling over the speakers. Sure, naturally. Walking back to the table, he looked around to see if anyone else was cognizant of the madness he’d been plunged into (no, everyone else was wasted), and sat down across from the Russian who was drawing a thick-headed pour of Asahi out of a beer tower sitting in the middle of their table. 

“Here, man, drink up. You look like you need it.”

Yuuri tentatively took the beer and stared into it for a minute. He wasn’t sure of the cost, but if he had to go halves on a beer tower with this kid, it was going to eat up the profits of about half an hour’s worth of Katsudon sales. With a sigh, he drank. 

“So this place is pretty much just like Japan, huh?” 

Yuuri couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not and kept his poker face in place until the boy slapped the table top and grinned, taking a long sip of his beer. Smacking his thin lips, he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “This beer is like sexy canoe.”

Yuuri choked on the mouthful of amber liquid he was drinking, getting it down with only a little dribble over his chin that he wiped at with a napkin. “Wh-...uh, what was that—”

“Fucking close to water.” The blonde snickered and took another deep sip from his glass, apparently pleased and completely oblivious to his misfired joke. “We should drink vodka over a good deal making, but maybe you can’t handle it if this is what you grew up with, huh?”

“....are you really 21?” Yuuri ventured skeptically, his eyes narrowing a little behind his glasses. 

“Hey, fuck you man! I got in here, didn’t I?” Yuuri must have looked a little startled by the easy way he was cursed out, because a menu was passed across the table into his hands. “Anyway, here: order up a bunch of stuff for us to try, all the good stuff.” 

Yuuri hesitated, the menu’s distracting collage of food pictures and large prices in starbursts only sort of registering in his overwhelmed mind. “I, uh—”

“Don’t worry, it’s on me!” Yuri wiggled a credit card between two fingers with an arrogant smirk. “It is business meeting, so my company covers it. It’s like a….what’s the word? Deduction or whatever.” 

Yuuri was still suspicious of the little punk’s true age, but wasn’t about to turn down a free dinner. “Uh, okay, is there anything you don’t eat?”

“Pfft, we’re in the food business! We eat everything, right?” Yuri grinned and took another sip of his beer, sitting up straighter in his seat. “Anyway, order up and then we’ll talk business.” His glass green eyes dragged away from Yuuri’s face to the walls around the room. He swallowed another gulp and then pointed at the white paper strips that lined them, with various kanji and kana written vertically over prices listed in yen. “What are those?”

Yuuri glanced up, registering the papers that hung like hundreds of ofuda, protecting the restaurant from the spiritual malaise that might creep in from the sordid streets outside. “Oh, that’s just the menu items but written in Japanese. Like,” he pointed to one close by. “That one says takoyaki for 500 yen,” he pointed to the next one, “okonomiyaki for 700 yen,” he pointed to the one after that which was written in red ink and his mouth stopped working, his cheeks going bright red to match. 

“What, what’s it say?” Yuri looked quickly between his table-mate's horrified look and the paper, wanting in on the secret. 

“K….Katsudon!” He couldn’t say what was actually written out loud without dying on the spot, and damned if he was going out in a porn-themed izakaya in the East Village. Luckily, a waitress stopped at their table and distracted the younger of the two from the awkward topic long enough for Yuuri to put in an order. He’d chosen several items from the menu, some of his traditional favorites from home, but also a couple he knew would be suitable for a Western palate. 

“And Katsudon, order a bowl of that,” Yuri nudged him under the table with his sneakered foot. 

Yuuri added the request to the order and handed off their menus, taking a moment to refill his beer from the tower and take a deep drink. Once he’d gotten it down, he leveled his gaze across the table and went into pro-mode. “So, what’s this business you want to talk about?” 

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Yuri started, settling in and talking with animated hands. “My company does catering, yeah? Kind of a big time local operation, we work with SWM Events, you heard of it?”

“Uh, no,” Yuuri shook his head, brow furrowed. Wait, had he? The acronym sounded familiar. 

“Okay, well, they basically do lots of parties around the city, like weddings and stuff, but for people who are stupid rich. My company is contracted to do their catering.”

“Your company.”

Yuri squinted across the table. “Yeah, the company I run with my grandfather.”

_Your grandfather’s company._ Yuuri nodded, sipping his beer and staying quiet about it. 

“Anyway, there’s a wedding coming up, and the bride is like….REALLY into Japan. I guess she lived there for a summer and she’s asking specifically for katsudon to be served at the reception. It’s her favorite, but it’s really hard to cook right, you know? So basically, I’m looking for an outside contractor, because none of my people are really solid on Japanese style and this bitch is so fucking picky. You got any experience doing catering?”

“Yeah, actually,” Yuuri replied, filling up his glass from the dwindling tower. “I grew up working at my parent’s place. It’s an onsen—uh, like, a bath house.” He hated telling this particular factoid to Americans because it inevitably earned him a strange look. Most Americans had hang ups about public bathing and the word “bath house” in particular had certain connotations that led them to believe he’d grown up amongst steamy homosexual debauchery. 

If only. 

“Oh, da, like banya. My grandfather takes me to Mermaid Spa sometimes in Brooklyn. That’s really cool,” he frowned, grabbing awkwardly at a takoyaki with his chopsticks, having trouble picking it up, “But d’you do lots of catering at a bath?”

“Normally, we’d just serve lunch and dinner, but we had a banquet room for parties and I’d help with that. What kind of headcount are we talking about?”

“They have until a week before to finalize their headcount, but they’ve currently locked in at 500 guests. How many people fit in your parent’s banquet room?”

“Uh…twelve,” Yuuri replied. 

“You think you’re up for this?” The Russian leveled him with a gaze that was all business. “It’s a different set up than a food truck. People think feeding a crowd is easy, but there’s a lot to consider…” He sighed and took a long sip of his beer. “I mean, you don’t seem like a total moron and your food is really tasty, so I’m willing to give you a chance, but if you fuck this up it’s gonna look real bad for everyone.”

Yuuri’s anxiety started to claw its way over the protective barrier of beer in his system and he pursed his lips, trying not to let its voice fill his head with hissed doubts. _You have no business taking a job like this. You’ve never even served half that in a day at the cart, and you think you’ll have the stones to face a room of 500 drunk party guests? It’s not even just on you if you screw it all up; it’s your ass, this kid’s ass, the wedding planner too. Just go back to your cart and make your knock-off Katsudon and be thankful for what you’ve been able to scrape together for yourself—_

“Oh, right, should probably talk about money. You won’t be the only one cooking, they want other food too, so, you know, her granny doesn’t flip out that there’s only weird Asian stuff to eat. That’s my team’s job. You’re basically responsible just for a katsudon appetizer. So what I’m saying is, I’m willing to cut you eight percent of their quote for your services. That sound fair to you?”

“I mean...what’s their quote?” Yuuri did some fast mental math in his head based on what he figured was a typical catering budget for a wedding. _This boy is going to pay you five whole American dollars._

“They’re paying $275 a head for dinner. So your cut would be eleven grand to cover ingredients and labor. You think that’s enough?”

A baseball bat named debt swung hard and sent the anxiety monster flying. “Y-yeah, I think that’ll work out.”

* * *

“Eleven THOUSAND dollars?? And you’re one hundred percent sure he didn’t mean rubles, right?” 

Yuuri sat on the edge of Phichit’s twin bed in a closet-sized dorm room on 20th Street. Miraculously, the fashionista had managed to score a single, and without a roommate to share it with, every inch of the space was utilized to the fullest. The seemingly delicate androgyne had pushed the cumbersome desk that was assigned with his quarters into the common area to free up more space for multiple racks of clothing. The walls were covered in hooks that held scores of hats, scarves, pocket squares, necklaces, and shoe organizers. While Yuuri was impressed with the sophomore’s utilization of vertical space, he was pretty sure the room broke several fire codes. 

“Well, it’s 500 guests, so the amount definitely makes sense, you know? I mean, it’s not going to be a full eleven thousand. They’re going to use their suppliers to get me ingredients and then deduct that from my pay, but it’s still going to be a serious chunk of cash.” 

“That’s nuts. That means their food budget is more than a hundred thousand dollars, right?” Plugging in a garment steamer, Phichit stood in front of a Saint Laurent silk shirt on a hanger. He gently wafted the hot mist towards the fabric, tugging lovingly at the vertical black and gold stripes. “That’s actually effing bananas. How do people even afford things??” 

Yuuri raised an eyebrow and gestured pointedly at the shirt. Phichit had gushed not ten minutes ago that it retailed for $1200.

“Don’t look at me like that. I found this baby at Buffalo Exchange for a hundred bucks!” Turning off the steamer, he stepped back to admire the find. “Besides, being the King of Thrifting is a completely different story than some rich jerks dropping obscene amounts of money on a wedding just to impress their friends and family.”

“I suppose so, Macklemore,” Yuuri leaned back and raised his feet up as Phichit swiped at them, bending over to access some drawers that were tucked away in the space under the bed frame. The anxiously polite man worried for a split-second that the teasing was too much for the delicate beginnings of their friendship. It had become a new habit to spend time after work hanging out with the young student ever since Yuuri found out that his dorm had a sweet roof deck and it wasn’t too far off his commute home. Phichit had shown up at the cart one evening after his studio class had let out for the day and offered Yuuri a beer and a nice, breezy view in exchange for a meal. Yuuri had been happy enough just to spend time with someone who wasn’t Takeshi, and had come back a few more times on his own (with dinner, as an apology for his intrusion). 

Phichit seemed to enjoy his company well enough, and certainly didn’t mind the free meals if it meant more money going into his fashion budget. 

“For the sake of our continued friendship, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Yuuri felt the tips of his ears get warm as Phichit confirmed that they were, indeed, friends. It was nice to have someone new to be casual with.

Pulling out two separate pairs of slacks, Phichit held them up in front of the shirt and pursed his lips as he compared his choices. “What do you think, black or charcoal?”

“Uh...charcoal?”

“Bzzzt, WRONG. Definitely black.” He tucked the losing pair back into the drawer and began going along the wall, accessorizing. “So, this is all cool, right? You said this guy looked like a teenager—did you research him at all?”

“I mean, he gave me some business cards?”

Phichit turned to look at him intensely. “Are you serious? You haven’t even Googled him?”

“I’ve been, uh...pretty busy since the meeting.” Admitting that you suck at the internet to an Instagram influencer was more embarrassment than Yuuri wanted to deal with at the moment. 

“Ohhhh my gooood, Yuuri.” Accessorizing forgotten, Phichit climbed onto the tiny bed next to him and grabbed his MacBook from underneath his pillow, getting comfy with it on his lap and opening it. “Do you have the business card? You really need to do some basic research, what if he’s a scam artist or something?”

Yuuri fumbled around in his back pocket for his wallet, pulling it out and willing away the rush of feelings that had bubbled up from sitting very close to someone very cute in a very private space. Did he always smell this nice? Should he ask him about his cologne or would that be creepy? “Here,” Yuuri handed two cards over. “Top one is the caterer, the other one is the wedding planner.”

Phichit’s nimble fingers flew over his keyboard as he browsed the search results for the catering company, skipping the link to their webpage and hovering over the links to review sites. “Well, that’s good news. They’ve got a ton of reviews going back several years, and they’re really highly rated. It’d be hard to fake that. What’s SWM Events, is that the wedding planner?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri replied, tapping the second business card that said as much. 

“It looks like they’re an exclusive partnership or something. They keep getting mentioned together. Hold up,” He ran another search query for the event company and his dark eyes widened. “Oh, dang.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Yuuri leaned in closer, forgetting his nervousness at their proximity and looking at the screen over his glasses. 

“These people are like….effin’ serious, Yuuri.” Phichit’s well manicured index finger stroked the track pad as they both scanned the results. “The King of Oligarch Weddings in the Big Apple,” he read aloud, clicking on a New York Times article link. “Russian-born Viktor Nikiforov has built an empire in the wedding industry catering to the luxurious tastes of both local and foreign billionaires keen on celebrating their nuptials in ostentatious and often ludicrously expensive revelry—ah crap!” The screen had faded out to a white block of text demanding subscription to read further. “I hit my free article limit.” 

Yuuri didn’t respond. He was preoccupied, flopped over onto his side and curled up, trying to control his breathing. 

“Uh, are you gonna make it?”

“I definitely don’t have enough Xanax for this,” he muttered against the sheets. _They smell like him_, a voice behind his building anxiety pointed out. It wasn’t helpful. 

“Do you need a hookup?” Phichit closed the laptop and put it aside, getting on his knees on the mattress and leaning over the anxious bundle on his bed. “Hey, what’s wrong? This seems like a pretty legit opportunity!” 

“It’s too legit,” Yuuri replied, pressing his fingertips to his eyes, his glasses sliding up over them. 

“Yeah, well you’re TOO LEGIT TO QUIT.”

“Phichit, no, this is a major deal. It said that guy has a ‘wedding industry empire’! What if I really mess this up and his whole business collapses or something??”

“You aren’t gonna mess it up,” Phichit replied, patting his shoulder kindly. “Have a little confidence, okay? I’ve been eating your food for a month, and it’s delicious. I know this is a little more intense than a food cart, but, uh...fake it till you make it, Katsuki! If you think positively, it’s gonna work out.”

Yuuri rolled off the bed and stood up, fixing his glasses on his face and not quite making eye contact. “I gotta get home and get my purchasing order for the week together, Phi.”

Phichit shifted so he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at his friend. “When’s the wedding?”

“Next month. If you don’t hear from me afterwards, I’ve fled the country.”

“Noooo, who will I buy lunch from if you pull a runner?” Phichit wiggled his feet to mimic running and grinned up at him, eyes shining. “Have some confidence, okay? You’re a pretty cool guy even if you don’t believe it.”

“Oh yeah?” He could feel his ears turning red again. 

“Yeah, I don’t usually invite randos in food carts up to my dorm room, okay? You’re privileged to be amongst my pretties.” He swept his hand around, indicated the massive collection of clothing with a cheeky grin. Yuuri couldn’t help but smile a little, something in his chest feeling melty. 

“Thanks, Phichit. I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Get home safe!” Waving him out, Phichit grabbed his phone and flopped on the bed, pulling open another search. Yuuri was already on the elevator and didn’t hear Phichit’s shout as he descended to the lobby.

“Holy CRAP, this guy’s A _DADDY_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your kind comments on Chapter One, I'm glad to see a bit of interest in this weird love note to my time living in NYC. All locations described in this fic are 100% real places that you should absolutely visit if you're there. 
> 
> Next chapter will probably be a while because I'll be in Japan for the majority of October, so if you enjoy where this is going give it a bookmark and we'll see each other soon I hope. It will feature: THE WEDDING PLANNER :inserteyeemoji:
> 
> PS: I love the Yuri Plisetsky that lives in my head more than words will allow me to describe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @fifthcolor for the title and for editing help, as always! Next up: Double Yuris end up in a sleazy izakaya in St Marks to talk shop, and Yuuri K is offered the deal of a lifetime (or at least a couple month's rent). Phichit's dorm room is a fire hazard.


End file.
